U.S. government has no business
taking over our health insurance

Published: Wednesday, November 18, 2009

We've been watching the national health care debate skeptically.

Washington is not helping our skepticism.

The Democratic version basically creates 120-plus new agencies and departments, approximately 30 new entitlements at a cost of $1.3 trillion. It raises taxes by $786 billion. It takes $500 billion out of Medicare.

That's scary math.

"We already have actuarials that Medicare is on course by about 2018-2019 to reach some point of insolvency," Rep. Randy Neugebauer told the A-J editorial board.

We continue to be sickened that many people still think government can provide the cure.

If government's going to be involved, it should be limited to helping find a private-sector solution.

As a first step, we should dump all this proposed legislation in the trash ... along with the approximately 2,000 pages detailing this disaster.

Don't think the private sector can do any better?

That's a reasonable concern, given the current health care system.

What about the model adopted by the Lubbock Chamber of Commerce where small businesses pooled together, increased their buying power and reduced their premiums? About 30 percent have health insurance for the first time.

There's unanimity with almost everyone in a bipartisan way the current health care system could be made better, more affordable, more accessible and available. There's some things Congress could do to accomplish that without turning the industry over to the federal government.

"This will be a huge expansion of the federal government," said Rep. Neugebauer. "And if this doesn't work, we may have demolished the private insurance industry as we know it in this country. We may not have a fallback position."

The responses Rep. Neugebauer is getting from the people in his district - first to the 1,000-page version and now to the latest incarnation twice that size - indicate they're strongly opposed to the Democrats' bill. Who can blame them?

The American people have watched their government take over banks, automobile companies, mortgage and insurance companies. They see nearly a $1 trillion stimulus package that hasn't stimulated the economy nearly as much as promised, or the national employment rate wouldn't be in double-digits.

The way it runs other programs doesn't inspire confidence government-controlled health care will be any improvement over what we have now. In fact, it'll probably be worse.

A variety of polls consistently show more than 80 percent of people who have health insurance are satisfied with their coverage. The House bill allows the government to take over health care even though Americans don't want the government in charge.

That's not only unacceptable, but unnecessary. Just ask Lubbock Chamber President Eddie McBride, about how well his organization's private sector insurance package is working with no federal involvement.